


Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

by kisahawklin



Series: Five Ingredient Fics [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Five Ingredient Fics, Gen, Team, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Lorne goes time traveling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spillingvelvet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spillingvelvet/gifts).



> Part of my [five ingredient fics](http://kate.dreamwidth.org/346849.html) for [](http://spillingvelvet.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**spillingvelvet**](http://spillingvelvet.dreamwidth.org/)'s prompt of _Team [I am counting it as one ingredient because, dude.], Lorne, wacky costumes, time travel, the sun._

+++++

"Faster, damn it," Evan says, even as he's pushing Parrish forward, hoping he won't trip. Donaldson is already dialing the gate, and Mukherjee's standing by the ring, jumping as soon as the whoosh dissipates, closely followed by Parrish, as Evan practically throws him into the wormhole by his tac vest.

When he stumbles through the gate, there isn't a single face in the gate room that he recognizes. They don't seem to recognize him either, considering the shocked looks on their faces. Mukherjee's face-down in a heap underneath Parrish, and Evan goes tumbling down on top of them as Donaldson comes through the gate running full tilt, her braid flying straight out behind her. She takes down the whole team like a Three Stooges skit.

Applause goes up as soon as the wormhole winks out, and Evan glances up at the people sitting around the consoles. Still no one familiar, and that's seriously starting to freak him out.

"That is the best entrance we have had in several months," says a woman in a gunmetal grey uniform-like pantsuit. "And those costumes! So realistic in detail; they must have taken you forever to put together."

Evan steps forward, hand on the butt of his P90, but keeping it lowered for the moment. "Excuse me, ma'am," he says, and the woman smiles at him endearingly. "We were looking for Atlantis."

"Of course you were," she says, coming down the steps, "and here you are. A little early for the fall harvest celebration, but I imagine you have rooms reserved." She phrases this like a question, and Mukherjee steps forward, inclining her head slightly.

"I'm afraid we have not," she says. "We have had some trouble in our travels and have had to leave our last lodgings early. Might we speak to someone about securing a room?"

Evan is thankful for whatever time Mukherjee's been spending with Teyla; he knows she trades babysitting for some kind of training, but he always expected it was getting hit with sticks, like everyone else. He's still trying to not freak out about the fact that Atlantis seems to have been taken over by Marriott; the gate room looks more like a hotel lobby than anything else. Woolsey's office has been made into an elaborate sitting room where several people are watching them, pointing and laughing, as they move further into the gate room.

They get herded up the platform, and just in time; someone else is dialing in. Evan stands at the back of his team, keeping an eye on things and letting Mukherjee handle the diplomacy, or room rental, or whatever. He sees no weapons at all, which isn't actually a good sign, not on Atlantis. Less disturbing but still disconcerting is the fact that no one seems to be concerned with _their_ weapons, as if they don't even recognize them.

"We will need to go to the bazaar first," Mukherjee says, after bowing and mumbling a thank you to a man with red and orange face paint sitting at Chuck's usual station. "We will need to trade something in exchange for currency so we can get rooms."

"Trade what?" Evan asks.

"Whatever we can," Mukherjee says, and leads the way, consulting the datapad the concierge gave her.

+++++

The bazaar is at the base of the main tower, in the open space that leads to the five outstretched arms of Atlantis. There are shops in the rooms that the expedition used for storage; there are small mobile carts selling food that smells strongly of meat and onions, and there are several rows of small booths selling everything from jewelry to art to strange little machines that might be some kind of robot. Some of the booths look permanent; some of them look like New York street vendors that could pack up in fifteen seconds flat and you'd never know they'd been there.

Evan tries to steer them into the stores, but Mukherjee stops him with a wagging finger. "We are not ready to deal with people who are long-standing merchants here," she says. "Let's start by looking around the booths. See if anyone takes notice of any of our gear."

Evan's tempted to pull out the mini-first aid kits. Medicine, even small amounts like the blister packs of Advil, is usually is looked on as a huge coup. He changes his mind when he takes a closer look and realizes these people are way more advanced than their normal trading partners. They might be more advanced than the Lanteans.

"Where are we, anyway?" Evan asks, and Donaldson shushes him loudly.

"Not until we're in private, sir."

Parrish has been remarkably quiet since the debacle on the gate room floor. A quick glance at him makes Evan's heart rate rise; he's standing numbly in the middle of them all, and Donaldson has a hand on his sleeve. Evan wonders if she's been leading him along this whole time – he hasn't said a word since they came through the gate. Evan takes a deep breath and decides to follow Mukherjee's lead. They need private space and soon.

It only takes ten minutes and a quick trip up one of the less reputable-looking alleyways to gain enough money for a room. They decide on a single room based on the amount they got for Donaldson's sunglasses. It's enough to house them for a week if they stay together, and Mukherjee said the guy taking reservations didn't bat an eye at a mixed group planning renting only one room.

+++++

There's plenty of space in the room; it's one of the larger suites Evan had scoped out a few weeks ago in a large building a little way out on Pier 4. Dr. Weir and Colonel Carter had both been reluctant to start assigning family-sized quarters, but Mr. Woolsey seemed confident Atlantis would not only open up to a larger contingent, but that families would be allowed. Evan didn't get his hopes up, but he appreciated Woolsey's commitment to the idea.

Donaldson and Mukherjee claim the bedroom, as if there was any question of that. He sets down his P90 just inside the door and tests out the couch. It's pretty comfortable, and large enough for two, if you get a little friendly. He and Parrish are as accustomed as any offworld team to sleeping in close quarters when it's necessary, and he's sure it won't be an issue.

"Parrish," Evan says, nudging him with his boot. He's sitting eerily still on the edge of the couch. "Dave, what's going on?"

He wonders if Parrish is in shock; he knows there are ways to be in shock that aren't medical in nature, but he has no idea what to do about it.

"Dave," he says, a little louder, sitting up and setting a hand on Parrish's arm. "Dave!"

Donaldson and Mukherjee come out of the bedroom to see what Evan's shouting about, and Donaldson immediately moves in front of Parrish and checks his pupils. "He's in shock," she says, and presses on his the back of his neck, getting him to lower it until it's between his knees. Evan puts a hand on his wrist as she does this, checking his pulse. It gets stronger as the seconds tick by, and Parrish's breathing evens out too.

"All right," Donaldson says finally, letting him lift his head. His face has some color, which is much better than the translucent paleness that surpassed even his normally fish belly-white skin tone. Parrish shivers a little and Donaldson shoves him over on the couch, next to Evan. "Jory, will you get the blankets from the bedroom?"

Mukherjee goes to get the blankets and Donaldson closes in on Parrish's other side. "You're too cold," she says, curling up to him. "Major, you should get a little closer, too."

Evan sighs and turns sideways, resting on his hip so he can press the body heat of his core into Parrish's right side. He feels less awkward about it when he realizes Mukherjee is going to be stuck between Parrish's legs, leaning back to lend him her warmth.

Mukherjee comes back with a couple of blankets, draping one over Parrish's shoulders and nimbly settling between Parrish's legs and throwing the blanket around herself and Parrish's legs.

"All right," Evan says, trying his best to keep his calm demeanor and act like the leader of the team. They're all scarily competent, so he doesn't usually do much in the way of real 'team leader' stuff (they don't end up sacrificing him for all the rituals either, which is kind of nice) but he's led enough people to know when having someone in charge is reassuring. "Where are we? I know the lady said Atlantis, but obviously –"

"Not where," Parrish says dully, and Mukherjee clucks her tongue and pats his knee reassuringly.

Evan glances across the way to Donaldson, who's grimacing at the incomprehensible statement.

"When," Parrish says after a beat, and Evan's heart drops, clearing out a hollow in his chest that's almost immediately filled in with lead.

"Shit," Evan says. "Shit."

+++++

They postpone reconnaissance until the next day, staying curled around Parrish and only getting up when nature calls. Evan mentally feels around his room, finding a tiny screen next to the door that glows blue when he thinks 'on' at it.

He rushes over to see what it does, and a black-haired, black-eyed woman's face comes on screen. "What would you like to purchase?" she asks, and behind her, he can see several tables laid out with food. Mukherjee hurries across the room and looks hungrily at the screen.

"Oh, that one," she says, pointing to a dish that looks like bulgogi. Evan nods, and Mukherjee takes over ordering. It seems that the room service is put on the tab; they'll have to pay when they leave, and Evan has no problem at all selling everything down to his underwear to keep them housed and fed until they can work out a way to get back to their own time.

He's read the reports of all the SG teams (most notably SG-1, which is hysterical in the way Carter, O'Neill, and Jackson omitted the most embarrassing stuff, but Teal'c just laid it all out there, every little detail) and Colonel Sheppard's report (so full of holes Sheppard might as well have said 'went to the future. Came back.'), and none of them were heavy with details of how their 'rescues' happened. It was painfully clear that even Sam Carter's knowledge wasn't enough, and it took McKay's entire life and then some to get Sheppard back. It's times like this that make Evan even more determined to push Zelenka until he gives in and agrees to join Evan's team.

"Sir?" Mukherjee asks, with a tug of his sleeve. "Tea or that pinkish milk?"

Evan shakes himself out of his thoughts and orders the tea before heading back to the couch. Parrish is looking better, playing a bit of gin rummy with Donaldson and getting his ass kicked.

When dinner comes and they're shaking themselves loose from the nearly stifling body heat of the blankets, Evan makes Parrish get up and walk around, taking him to the bathroom and making him splash water on his face.

He looks better; he's able to eat when they get back into the main room, and he slurps down a whole bowl of soup. When he sets his bowl down, they all automatically stop eating too.

"So the ritual we interrupted," Parrish says, with a humorless chuckle, "it probably was related to the weird sparks we saw coming off their sun."

As soon as he mentions the sun, Evan groans. "It was going off like a firecracker. How are they going to figure out when we are?" A horrible thought occurs to him and he absolutely refuses to say it out loud. He doesn't have to; Donaldson is smarter about this stuff than he is.

"We could be ten thousand years in the past," she says, and Evan's heart sinks again. "Maybe Atlantis was the Motel 8 of the Pegasus Galaxy."

"I don't think so," Mukherjee says, picking up her plate. "There's way too much variety in the people, and not just in their dress and customs."

"And they don't seem like sociopathic narcissists," Evan mutters, and Parrish guffaws loudly, color rising on his cheeks as he puts his napkin up to his mouth to hide his amused smile.

They pack away the extra food (Evan finds the mini-fridge as well as some kind of heating appliance in an area with countertops that looks vaguely like a kitchen) and settle down under the blankets together, telling stories about their hometowns until they drop off, one by one.

+++++

The next day Mukherjee heads out early, dressed only in BDUs and with a handful of odd items: Evan's sunglasses, some of Parrish's Bic pens, and the purple non-latex gloves from the mini-first aid kit in Donaldson's backpack.

She comes back with four huge bags of stuff, and a few bits of money to spare – brightly colored shells that look almost like concave poker chips (they're lined inside with a silver metal that Evan can't immediately identify). There are several outfits for each of them, some liquid in a glass container that appears to be detergent, and several types of dry and canned foods.

Evan's careful to hide his growing disappointment as he roots through the bags and piles things onto the counter. There's a certain awe at how Mukherjee's accepted their situation with subtle grace, and the quiet way she's taking care of things without any fuss. She was the first person he picked for his team – he asked her after an hour and a half in the gym together, getting beaten up by Ronon. She had a grin on her face a mile wide, jumping up from the mat after every smackdown, and he's never regretted the decision.

Donaldson's mothering Parrish a little bit, but Evan figures that's only fair as Parrish has taken the news the worst of all of them; he has a boyfriend back on Atlantis that he's been with since before the expedition even came to the Pegasus galaxy. The last time he and Parrish talked about it, he told Evan they'd been looking at rings.

Donaldson never talks about her personal life; he's not sure she has one. She's the most scarily competent member of the team, taking field medic training after the incident on M2C-968, and daring private lessons with McKay to try and understand some of the technology better. Evan feels woefully undeserving of this group of people, but they're his team, and he needs to get his shit together.

"Okay, time to get down to some serious recon," he says, stripping down to his boxers and t-shirt and putting on a pair of colorful linen trousers. They're purple bleeding into green, a little lurid for his taste, but there wasn't much black in the bazaar, and they need to blend in and get used to the place as quickly as possible.

He tosses a shirt with a cutaway front over his head in a matching shade of green, and Mukherjee smiles at him brightly. "Becoming, sir."

"Thanks," Evan says sardonically, tossing her a red and yellow combo. The one with the long arms (blue and navy, lucky duck) goes to Parrish and the pink and brown set with extra- long trousers goes to Donaldson. They all fit well; Mukherjee has a good eye.

They look like they're going to a Pride parade. Parrish perks up a little when Evan brings it up. It takes half an hour to make themselves presentable and figure out how to lock the door. It isn't until Mukherjee finds a passcode on their datapad that they realize it's their key to the apartment.

They lock it up and head to the bazaar, the familiar hallways of Atlantis feeling eerily alien.

+++++

Evan splits them up into pairs, taking Parrish on so that Mukherjee won't be slowed down by their combined discomfort. She grabs Donaldson's hand before Evan can change his mind and dashes down one of the corridors.

Parrish chuckles. "Sorry you're stuck with me," he says, brushing his hands down the front of his shirt nervously.

"Shows what you know," Evan says, bumping shoulders with him, "Donaldson picked the short straw."

+++++

They meet up in two hours, and Evan was feeling pretty good about his survey of the bazaar and the rough maps he and Parrish sketched out as they sat in the café-like restaurant, drinking a sweet almost-coffee and eating handfuls of nuts… until he sees Mukherjee, pushing a cartful of boxes and bags and rolls of colorful material.

Mukherjee's shopped herself into a frenzy, buying all kinds of things for their apartment (which she's also secured for the next three months) because Donaldson got hired as a medic at an urgent care clinic that's installed in one of the permanent rooms.

"She started immediately, sir," Mukherjee says, and hands both of them a few more of the shells – rhylla, Mukherjee tells him again. "She was given a signing bonus, for moving expenses."

"Good thing," Evan says. A little cash takes the pressure off, but the fact that Donaldson's got a job just brings home the sense of hopelessness that's started to set in. He plasters on a broad smile and asks Mukherjee where they should have lunch.

+++++

Donaldson gets back to the apartment ten hours later, looking ready to drop. Parrish'd tried his hand at some of the food and made a respectable meat-ish stew for dinner, so Mukherjee gets Donaldson settled on the couch while Evan serves up.

"Thank you, sir," she says. "I'm starving. We didn't have time for a meal."

Evan nods, they've all been in situations like that. He didn't really expect it in a place like this. "There were that many people that needed urgent care?"

"Yes, sir," Donaldson says around a mouthful of stew. "We're more like paramedics than a clinic. You can bring people to the clinic, but the doctors handle walk-ins. We ran from one emergency to the next around the city. It was crazy."

They curl around her on the couch, telling her about everything Mukherjee bought while she wolfs down the stew and tea. She tells them stories of her runs while Evan fiddles with the environmental controls (it's getting cold in the apartment and he doesn't know how to get the heat on) and Parrish cleans up the kitchen.

When she starts to doze off in the middle of one of her stories, Evan carries her to the bedroom. He unlaces and removes her boots and stands back while Mukherjee pulls off her shirt and pants before undressing and climbing in behind her. Evan tucks them in, squeezing Mukherjee's shoulder before he waves the light off and shuts the door.

Parrish is sitting on the couch, staring into a cup of tea. Evan goes to the kitchen to pour himself a cup and brings it to the couch, warming his hands around it while he waits for Parrish to say something. Evan's coaxed him through a couple of problems offworld, and one bad fight with his boyfriend on Atlantis. It takes every ounce of patience Evan has, because for every couple of minutes of dead silence, he gets half of a stuttered sentence that is usually near-incoherent and looks like the words beat Parrish up as they come up his throat.

"I'll never see him again," Parrish says, still staring blank-faced into his tea. "The last thing I said to him was 'take out the garbage.'"

Evan swallows. There's nothing that'll destroy you quicker than despair, but he can't help the twinge of regret of Parrish's behalf. "I'm sure you said please," Evan tries, but the words fall like lead.

"I didn't say I loved him," Parrish says, and Evan scoots across the couch, setting down his tea to drape an arm around Parrish.

"He knows, Dave." Evan's seen the two of them necking in the back of the room on movie night, talking quietly on a secluded balcony and looking googly-eyed at each other over breakfast. He's pretty sure Jordan knows.

"I know," Parrish says, the thin glass of his composure breaking, sorrow and regret playing across his face. Evan holds him as he cries, rubs his back and hums his favorite childhood lullaby until Parrish's sobs turn into soft sighs, and then yawns, and then Evan tucks them in together, wrapping the blanket tight against the chill of the room.

+++++

Donaldson wakes him before she leaves the next morning, a light touch on his arm enough to bring him wide awake in a second.

"There are some gardens," she says, with a surreptitious nod at Parrish. "They're in the D3 building on Pier 5, sub-sea level."

"Thanks," Evan says, smiling tightly and waiting until she leaves before letting his head drop back to the pillow. Parrish's turned over in the night and slung an arm over Evan's chest, like he always does. Evan's not ready to get up yet, so he closes his eyes and drowses, listening to the quiet noises in the apartment. There are the usual settling type noises, and Parrish's heavy breathing, but a pulsating sound as well, something he feels more than hears. Something that tells him Atlantis is glad to be home to all these people.

When they get back, he's going to talk to Sheppard about it. He's never thought of Atlantis as anything more than a city or a spaceship, and now he wonders if she might be lonely.

+++++

Parrish is the second person on the team to get a job, hired on the spot by the guy weeding the vegetables. Evan leaves him with the plants and the plant-people and wanders around the bazaar, wondering how in the hell he can get a job, and what it means if he does.

Mukherjee finds him before dinner, a bright pamphlet flapping in her hand as she waves it wildly at him.

"This is the festival," she says, pointing at the flyer. There's a costume competition and the prize is three thousand rhylla. "That's enough to buy some time from the engineers," she says, and Evan stares at her, trying to puzzle out who 'the engineers' might be. She smiles at him enigmatically and turns down one of the rows of stalls.

He follows Mukherjee through the stalls and down the main corridor leading to Pier 3. There's something eerily familiar about the mural that stretches ahead of them, but he can't put his finger on it. It reminds him of the one he saw on the side of a school in Atlanta when he was stationed there; a hodgepodge of faces and backgrounds and –

And that is Rodney McKay's face. It's not really, but it's so clearly _meant_ to be him, with the half-turned down mouth and bright blue eyes, that Evan stops and stares. Sheppard's there too, though the only thing that's recognizable is his hair.

He's not sure who the woman is supposed to be, but it can't be Teyla unless they've gotten something totally wrong; she's an Amazon, towering over Sheppard and McKay. Ronon's dreads, Woolsey's bald head, Zelenka's wild hair and glasses… as he looks over the faces, he can see traces of the people he knows in the sketches that come at best from second or third-hand knowledge.

"I think this is supposed to be you, sir," Mukherjee says. The only defining characteristic of the portrait she's pointing to is that it has absolutely no defining characteristic.

"Thanks, I think."

"I think it's supposed to be your boyish face, sir." She smirks at him, sarcasm in her face if not her tone.

"And that's you?" he asks, pointing to a woman with a long, thick, black braid. Maybe he should grow a mohawk.

"Yes," she says, nodding. The blonde woman next to her is clearly Donaldson – even looks a little like her, with her long face and piercing eyes. The skinny redhead is obviously Parrish, though it's a little more like a caricature than most of them. As they walk down the hallway, other familiar traits make appearances: a huge pair of glasses for Kusinagi, a hawk-like nose for Miller, Teldy's smooth, ever-present bun.

Mukherjee lets him wander down the hall for a while, until he is guessing at names and features, and feeling oddly homesick for people that are more like extended family than colleagues. She pulls him back to their team snapshot, a gate in the background behind them and a sun spitting sparks.

"They know," Evan breathes, and the sense of relief hits him like a hammer. "They know what happened."

"Yes, sir," Mukherjee says, smiling broadly. "And take a look at what we're wearing."

Evan grins; the only part of the portraits that are spot on are their BDUs, tac vests and firearms.

"The costume contest," he says, and Mukherjee laughs at him for being so slow.

"Yes, sir."

He lets his head fall back and takes a deep breath. Things suddenly look a lot brighter.

+++++

Mukherjee introduces him to the engineers, a group of people who seem to be able to build or fix anything – for a price. While he doesn't have a clue about any of the projects sitting out on their workbenches in various stages of completion, as soon as he picks up some doodad and makes it glow, he has their full attention.

Apparently the Ancient gene is just as rare now as it was back in their time, because he gets paid a ridiculous twelve hundred rhylla a month to spend four hours a day turning things on and off with his brain.

Evan can't decide if he's proud that he held out the longest of everyone on his team, or if he's ashamed that he didn't even know that Mukherjee's had a job since practically the moment they stepped through the gate, but it is nice to have some money of his own to throw around.

They spend the week before the festival working and exploring, each of them getting a feel for the area around their workplace. They meet up for meals when they can, and take turns bringing Donaldson something for her to eat on her rare breaks between emergency calls.

Donaldson works sixteen hour days, four days on, four days off. Parrish works three tens and a day off, which seems to agree with him, and it means that he and Donaldson only share one day off, which is more than Evan could have hoped for, scheduling-wise. He works every day, but since it's only four hours, it hardly cramps his style. He has no idea what Mukherjee's job is, or what her hours might be, but she's pretty much available any time he or anyone else on the team needs her.

She also takes care of a lot of details of their life, reporting to Evan at the end of the day and having him sign any necessary forms in an eerie reminder of his paperwork detail on Atlantis. Today, he signs something for their apartment, another for what he thinks might be a bank account, and the entry form to the harvest festival costume competition.

"Are we really going to go down there in our Atlantis gear and prance around like we're pretending to be pirates?"

"Yes, sir," Mukherjee says, and takes back the forms.

+++++

The harvest festival seems to be a holiday; everything is closed down except the urgent care clinic and the gate room. The stalls in the center of the bazaar have packed up and there is a gigantic open space filled with decorations, tables loaded with food and drink, and people dancing. Evan smiles, politely refusing all comers, which amounts to six women and four men before they stop asking. Parrish wades in with the first person who asks, a petite blonde woman with curly hair dressed in a pair of pedal pushers and bikini top.

Mukherjee stays on the sidelines with him, observing their competition thoughtfully. "I believe the four women dressed as priests of Batane may be our closest competition," she says, and Evan has no idea who she's referring to or what chance they or the fake priests have at winning the grand prize. He hopes the fact that his team looks like the paintings of themselves will work in their favor, but there's no way to know.

Evan drinks some of the sweet mint flavored tea, the only thing he's absolutely positive isn't alcoholic, and tries to forgo eating until Mukherjee brings over a plate full of sweets. She's the only team member that knows about his sweet tooth, and sometimes he wishes he had never traded her half his DVD collection for that bag of M&Ms.

He eats the syrup-soaked pastries thoughtfully, scanning the crowd and trying to figure out who's in costume and who's not. It's nearly impossible to tell. He sees a group of four women in robes and points them out to Mukherjee to see if they're the priests that she was talking about; she laughs at him and shakes her head before picking out four women with hair down to their knees wearing half shirts and heavily beaded harem pants. The costumes look incredibly intricate.

Mukherjee goes to dance with a tall, broad woman when asked, and Evan edges further away from the dance floor just in case. Donaldson finds him half an hour later, still eating the strangely addictive pastry-things and watching the festivities.

"Off already?" Evan asks. He doesn't get to see Donaldson much, even on her days off. She's taking classes of some sort, so she's up and out of the apartment before he wakes up most days, even her days off.

"Everyone works two hour shifts on holidays so we can all go for a little while, at least," she answers, picking up one of his sweets and popping it in her mouth.

"Hey, get your own!"

She grins at him unapologetically and makes her way to one of the food tables, piling a plate high with some kind of fruit and nut salad. Evan rolls his eyes and continues to watch the dancers. Parrish has bowed out to get some tea and Mukherjee is now dancing with a guy so muscular he puts Ronon to shame. It's a tight dance floor, so there's not a lot happening besides the typical jumping up and down he's seen at clubs he's been dragged to, but there's a space opening up for a couple that seems to be doing something more formal, ballroom-like. People turn and look, and eventually start clapping with the rhythm of the piece as the woman, who is a good foot taller than the man she's with and twice as broad, spins him recklessly around the edges of the crowd. He keeps spinning, guided only by her hands, and finally comes to a stop as she yanks him to her and dips him over her knee.

Evan's applauding with the rest of the enthusiastic crowd, wondering if whistling is considered uncouth when the woman from the gateroom takes the stage and raises her hand to quiet them all. "It is time to judge the costumes," she says, her voice amplified by some unseen machinery. "If the entries to the team costume challenge would come to the stage, please."

Evan sets his plate down and makes his way through the crowd toward the stage, meeting up with the rest of his team on the way. They're in full offworld gear, right down to their weapons, though they're empty and have the safeties on just in case.

The emcee announces the six teams, starting on the opposite side and ending with SGA-2. "Team Lorne," she recites off the card, and Evan glances down at Mukherjee, startled. She smirks at him and squeezes his arm. It's a longstanding joke on their team; the expedition seems to call SGA-1 Team Sheppard, a fact that he's pretty sure the rest of Sheppard's team doesn't know about, or McKay, at least, since he doesn't seem like the type to play second fiddle. None of the other teams are known by their team leaders, and Evan never wanted his team to be that way – they're all just as valuable as he is, probably more.

They bow their heads as an acknowledgement of the introduction, and wait patiently while a panel of people at a table that's been hastily set up in the middle of the dance floor confer about their costumes. Evan shifts from foot to foot and wonders if he can safely go back to the room and veg after the competition, or if he has to put more face time in down here.

A young boy runs a datapad from the table of judges to the emcee and Evan holds his breath. He's taken a look at the engineers' billings, and as far as he can tell, they're completely arbitrary, but no one's paid more than three thousand rhylla for a down-payment, so they should be able to work something out if they win.

The emcee nods at each team in turn and turns around to face the crowd, holding the data pad high. "The winner of the team costume contest is Team Lorne, for their archaic Atlantean expedition costumes," she says, and the word _archaic_ makes Evan's heart sink a little.

Mukherjee takes the lead, accepting the prize and the note for the rhylla and shaking the emcee's hand. She tells him later that her name is Gha Meneck and she's in charge of the city; the ninety-seventh governor.

Evan steps down from the podium, letting his fake smile drop and stalking toward the exit determinedly. He feels a tug on his sleeve, though, and looks around to see who's grabbed him. The tug comes again and he looks down at a young girl, with café-au-lait hair and prominent cheekbones. She looks vaguely familiar, but he can't place her.

"Major Evan Lorne," the girl says, to Evan's complete shock. "I am Tiolan Emmagen, and I need you to come with me."

She's older than he thought on first glance, clearly a young girl on the verge of womanhood, and her words repeat themselves in his head and he feels them click into place. "Emmagen? Like Teyla Emmagen?"

She nods, bobbing in an almost-curtsy. "She was my ancestor, yes."

Evan looks around for the rest of his team, but Parrish and Mukherjee are watching the rest of the costume competition and Donaldson is nowhere to be seen. "Okay," he says, and follows her around to the back of the butcher shop that's one of the permanent structures of the bazaar.

"Mom!" the girl yells as soon as the door slams behind them. "Mom! I've found Major Evan Lorne!"

A woman's voice comes from the other room between loud chopping noises. "Stop making up stories, Tiolan. You know that's just a myth."

Tiolan waves Evan into the next room where a petite woman with extremely muscular arms is butchering an animal that looks like a deer. "Tiolan," she says, without looking up. "You shouldn't bother people like this. I want you to stop dragging people back to the shop."

"But _mom_ ," Tiolan says, shoving Evan toward her. "This really _is_ Major Evan Lorne. He even said so."

"Major Evan Lorne," Evan says, putting his hand out in greeting. "You can call me Lorne."

The woman stares at him, dumbstruck.

"Shake his hand, mom," Tiolan whispers. "You're being rude."

"What is your birthday?" the woman asks sharply, her eyes narrowing.

"June fourteenth, nineteen seventy-two," Evan answers automatically, before he can even wonder why she's asking the question.

"And the names of your team members?"

"Dr. David Parrish, Lt. Vanessa Donaldson, Sgt. Jory Mukherjee, " Evan fires off. And before she can ask another question, he puts his hand out again and says, "And you are?"

"My apologies," she says, grinning now and grasping his entire forearm. "Kinta Emmagen."

"So, you're Teyla's… great great granddaughter or something?" Evan asks. He can see something of a family resemblance, though it stands out more in Tiolan.

Kinta laughs, returning to her butchering. "She is twenty-two times my ancestor."

Figuring twenty years a generation, that's four hundred and forty years. It doesn't sound like that much, Evan thinks, not after Sheppard's fifty thousand year stretch. It seems like it should be easy. For a second, he thinks it might be.

Then Kinta buries her cleaver in the cutting board next to the meat and says, "Come with me."

+++++

Kinta sets out the contents of the ammo box with care; his paintbrushes – the new brushes the Daedalus brought last week, still in their plastic – Mukherjee's tin whistle, Donaldson's softball glove, and a ring for Parrish. It's inscribed with something Evan doesn't even try to read. There's a thumb drive and a crystal, and some paper that's lost the ink printed on it over the intervening years. There's a weird gadget that doesn't look Ancient in design and a picture of his team under glass, taken during the team's quarantine after the planet with the hallucinogenic water, where they're all smiling goofily and leaning on each other. He stares down at the photo, trying to force his brain to accept that it had been five hundred years ago, not a couple of months.

"They knew you had been sent through time," Kinta says, the story obviously coming from long practice, worn smooth by many retellings. "But they did not know how far, or which direction, except that you had not left a message anywhere if you were in the past. Assuming you were in the future, they started leaving messages around Atlantis for you to find, including by gathering your things and giving them to Teyla for safekeeping, when she became the first governor of Atlantis.

"Torren bought this shop a few years later and impressed on his daughter than an Emmagen must stay here, and that we must know the story of Major Evan Lorne and his team, and that we must help the travelers if we can."

Evan stares at the items lined up on the table. The crystal and the thumb drive are both obvious to him, as are their personal effects. He has no idea what to make of the other thing.

"Do you know what this is?" he asks, picking it up and turning the oblong object over and over. It's heavy for its size, dark grey metal the color of hematite. He finds a button and when he presses it, out pops a handle that practically molds itself to his hand. There's another button that makes the pincers on the end open and shut with a clack.

"I do not," Kinta says. "I don't recognize any of those things, save the paper and the ring."

"Can he stay for supper?" Tiolan asks. "I want to know what Atlantis used to be like."

"Of course," Kinta says, ruffling Tiolan's hair. "Or maybe," she says, meeting Evan's eyes and thankfully reading his need to regoup, "they can join us tomorrow night. They will need some time, I think. Isn't that right, Major Evan Lorne?"

"Just Lorne, please," Evan tries, but Kinta laughs and heads back to the kitchen.

+++++

Evan takes the box back to their apartment – which looks tiny now, in comparison to the roominess of the living quarters behind the butcher shop. He saw stairs, too, so there's at least one more level to the Emmagens' living quarters. He wonders how much of Teyla's family lives there.

He hopes desperately for either Donaldson or Mukherjee to come home first, but he doesn't really expect to get that lucky. When the door whooshes open and he snaps his eyes open from his drowse, he's not really surprised to see Parrish standing in the doorway.

"Dave," he says, wiping a hand down his face to rub the sleepiness away.

When he glances back at Parrish, he's stuck in the doorway, deer in the headlights look in his eyes.

"Come on," Evan says. "Get in here and get some tea or whiskey or something."

Parrish goes even paler and makes a beeline straight to Evan on the couch. "Tell me. Are Nessa and Jory okay?"

Evan blinks. He never calls Donaldson or Mukherjee by anything but their last names. The three of them are more informal with each other, but not with him, one of the only unspoken rules he follows as team leader. He'd insist on it with Parrish, too, but Parrish responds better to his first name in emotional situations. The opposite is true for the women, possibly because they're military – he uses their rank when they need bolstering. "They're fine. Sit down already."

He waits for Parrish to work through his fidgeting and settle his hands in his lap. Evan tries to smile at him, the box is _good_ news, damn it, but Parrish looks even more uncomfortable than he usually does, so Evan drops the smile and gets right into the story about Tiolan and Kinta.

"And they had this…" He looks down at the box, a metal ammo box that's clearly made the five hundred year journey with no trouble except the paint getting worn off the side. "…time capsule."

Parrish reaches out to touch the box; the disbelief clear on his face. It's been weeks since they've seen anything even remotely familiar. The ammo boxes are used on Atlantis for storage of almost anything but perishables. He knows the science labs uses them for spare crystals and Ancient knickknacks that might be incendiary devices.

Evan gives the box a shove so Parrish can reach it easily from where he's hovering, sitting on the very edge of the couch. He pulls out Evan's brushes and Donaldson's glove and Mukherjee's tin whistle, setting them reverently on the table. Next come the information devices, the thumb drive and the crystal, and finally the unknown thingee. Parrish puts the box up to the light and reaches his arm down into it, and Evan can see his eyes well up before he even pulls the ring out of the box. He gets up to make tea and leave Parrish alone with whatever Jordan had to say to him.

+++++

Evan brings their winnings and what's left in the ammo box to the engineers the next morning, and he finally gets to meet his boss. She has bouncy, curly blonde hair and her name is Shanne M'Kay. Her eyes are brown, but she looks enough like Jeannie McKay that Evan gapes.

"M… M'Kay?" he stutters. "Like Rodney McKay?"

That gets her to look up from the Ancient Roomba she's working on. "Everyone knows I come from Rodney's line," she says, turning back to the gadget Evan thinks is testing the Roomba's batteries. "No one generally mentions it in polite company, though."

"Sorry," Evan says. He can't help it – it's like having McKay with him, and suddenly it feels like they're really going to get home, something that's been slowly slipping away from him as his team settles into this new Atlantis. "I didn't realize it was a bad thing to be related to Rodney McKay." Though honestly, he should have guessed.

She sets down the gadget and walks over to him. "So what can I do for you?"

+++++

Kinta makes a mean dinner; a finely spiced meat pounded thin and a potato-like vegetable simmered in a creamy sauce. They tell stories of Atlantis and Teyla cheerfully, even Parrish, once Evan kicks him under the table.

"So you work with the engineers," Tiolan says, and Evan grins, guessing what comes next. The engineers are treated almost like witch doctors; they keep the city running and can get most things working, given enough time and motivational rhylla. "Have they found a way to send you back through time?"

Evan blinks. That's not at all what he expected. "They're working on it," Evan says. "The crystal had general information about the phenomenon and how to override a gate, but there wasn't anything Shanne didn't know. She's working on getting the data off the flash drive next. She said she had some theories about time travel through the gates at any rate."

"Oh," Tiolan says. "I just thought you'd go home once we found you." She sounds sad.

"That's not normally how these things work," Mukherjee says. "Things of this nature take a while to figure out. But I'm sure we'll be going home soon." She lays a hand on Parrish's arm and squeezes as he frowns down at the stew.

+++++

It only takes two more months for Shanne to crack the funny device, which gives them data on the stars that are most active and their gate addresses (which don't even need tweaking, since it's only five hundred years). She works the rest of the calculations out herself, and she has all the confidence of every McKay he's ever met, but with the most down-to-earth pleasant manner. He can hardly wait to get back home to taunt McKay with it, and to tell Teyla about her future generations. Mukherjee has a camera on her (so prepared he can't even stand it), so the day before they head out to M33-CX9, she takes pictures of the Emmagens and Shanne and the mural and the market.

It takes another six days for them to get a sunspot that will get them back to Atlantis within a year or two of their disappearance (after, he hopes desperately, not before) and when they walk through the gate, Parrish is wearing his ring, Mukherjee has her camera, Donaldson has her glove, and he's holding a doll that Tiolan made for Teyla's son. They take a deep breath and walk through together.

+++++

There's no way to tell when it is when they get to M5X-392, so Evan just turns around and dials Atlantis. He sends through his IDC, having no idea whether or not it's going to work.

"Hello?" he asks, switching on his headset. "Atlantis, do you read?"

" _Major Lorne?_ "

His entire team lets out their breath when they hear Chuck's voice. "Yes, Chuck, it's me and my team."

" _It is great to hear your voice, sir. Let me get Mr. Woolsey and Colonel Sheppard._ "

"Wait!" Evan shouts before Chuck can put him on hold. "How long have we been gone?"

" _Five months, sir,_ " Chuck responds, and that's not the worst news Evan's ever heard, but it's not as close as Shanne'd been hoping when she did the calculations. " _Just hold one minute, Evan, I'm sure Mr. Woolsey will want to talk to you before you come through._ "

"Evan?" Mukherjee says, her eyebrows going up. " _Evan_?"

"Oh, shut up," Evan says.

+++++


End file.
